


The Super Hanamura Bros. Super Show!

by Pfeffermouse



Series: measure our time by the movement of shadows [2]
Category: Persona 4
Genre: Friendship, M/M, Romance, Shenanigans, Souji does not appear but Yosuke has many feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:47:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26002153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pfeffermouse/pseuds/Pfeffermouse
Summary: Doo doo doo da-doo DOO! Bom.Or, Interlude 1, in which Yosuke and Teddie take on a side quest in Souji’s place, get insulted repeatedly by a dungeon, and come a little bit more to terms with Souji’s Shadow.
Relationships: Hanamura Yosuke & Kuma | Teddie, Hanamura Yosuke/Narukami Yu, Hanamura Yosuke/Persona 4 Protagonist, Hanamura Yosuke/Seta Souji
Series: measure our time by the movement of shadows [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1776169
Comments: 18
Kudos: 110





	The Super Hanamura Bros. Super Show!

**Author's Note:**

> The “one-third kindness” line is straight out of PQ, because it amuses me deeply and I think it’s a great pity that the events of PQ don’t carry over. Teddie’s line prefacing his follow-up attack is straight from P4G.

It had all seemed pretty simple in theory, which probably should have been Yosuke’s first clue that it was going to be way more aggravating than it sounded. (Actually, Yosuke’s entire life history to date probably should have been his first clue that it was going to be way more aggravating than it sounded, but Yosuke generally tried not to think about that.)

All that had happened was that Ms. Sofue had stopped Yosuke on his way out the door after class on Saturday to ask him how Souji was doing (answer: a lot better), when he’d be back at school (answer: Monday), and if Yosuke could let Souji know that she had a request for him whenever Souji was feeling up to it (answer: _Hell_ no, although possibly not in those exact words). Apparently, Ms. Sofue wanted some sort of ore to make a dowsing instrument, and Souji was just _so_ passionate about history and _so_ good at finding rare materials. As it happened, Yosuke also wanted something, which was for Souji to _not_ end up jumping into the TV on his first official day back on his feet post-Shadow just because Souji’s actual passion was for keeping the team from getting killed, which apparently required him to be the errand boy for three-quarters of Inaba. Yosuke still didn’t really understand all of the details on that one. All he really knew was that Ms. Sofue wanted Souji to get her a fancy rock, while Yosuke did _not_ want Souji to get Ms. Sofue a fancy rock, not when he was still supposed to be taking it easy. Fortunately, as dilemmas went, this one was fairly easy to resolve – after all, there was no reason that _Souji_ had to be the one to find the fancy rock. Yosuke and the rest of the team could pop into the TV, grab the rock, maybe get in a little target practice, and call it a day. No big deal, right?

…Possibly Yosuke should have checked everyone’s schedule before committing to that particular plan.

“What I want to know,” Yosuke said irritably as they made their way in the direction of Void Quest, “is how is it that normally we’re the ones who have the most trouble getting off work to go into the TV, but somehow we were the only ones who didn’t have to work today? Chie doesn’t even have a job!” And it wasn’t like Yosuke didn’t get it – work sucked – but that didn’t stop him from being annoyed about it all the same. They were going to have to be a lot more careful with just the two of them, after all. At least Teddie could navigate, more or less, and they could both heal, so it could have been a lot worse, but…

“She’s been helping out at Junes a lot lately whenever no one’s planning on going into the TV,” Teddie said cheerfully as he skipped along next to Yosuke. His boundless and frankly exhausting enthusiasm just made Yosuke dourer. “I think she’s planning on restocking all of Sensei’s items for him!”

Yosuke winced. Chie’d taken the whole thing with Souji’s Shadow pretty hard – and no wonder, given her own Shadow. She’d cheered up a lot once they’d come up with a game plan for helping Souji _without_ hurting him this time, but Yosuke guessed it was going to take a while for her to really forgive herself. Yosuke knew the feeling.

“But I’m so happy Sensei is feeling better and can be part of the team again soon!” Teddie continued as they approached the entrance to the dungeon. “It’s so _weird_ taking orders from you, Yosuke!”

“You ought to be _used_ to taking orders from me, considering that I’m your supervisor at work!” Yosuke snapped. “You know, _I’m_ the one who gets in trouble when you – ”

“Oh, I can smell the target up ahead!” Teddie interrupted, and Yosuke closed his eyes, took a few deep breaths, and did some visualization exercises that involved dyeing Teddie’s bear suit chartreuse. “It’s definitely inside!”

“Are you sure?” Yosuke asked, opening one eye just enough to glare at Teddie. There had been several false starts earlier, as Yosuke tried to explain to Teddie what an ore was, and what a divining instrument was, and how a stick could supposedly be used to find things like Teddie’s nose could, and why Ms. Sofue needed a fancy rock for that. Teddie had been skeptical, and it wasn’t like Yosuke was an expert on divination or anything, and there had been a fair amount of yelling and flailing before they’d managed to lock onto something promising.

“Paw-sitive!” Teddie said with a bounce, and Yosuke sighed and shook out his arms and legs in preparation.

“Okay,” he said, pushing his glasses up. “Let’s get this over with.”

* * *

Yosuke kind of hated Void Quest. A video game-based dungeon sounded kind of fun in theory, but trying to navigate the pixelated corridors just made his eyes cross and gave him a headache, and he’d faceplanted more than once from sheer cognitive dissonance, as his eyes told him one thing and his brain told him another.

Like now, for example.

“Are you okay, Yosuke?” Teddie asked solicitously as Yosuke pushed himself off the ground with a groan. “You sure are clumsy!”

“I’m not _clumsy_ ,” Yosuke grumbled as he felt along his headphones to make sure they weren’t broken – then, as an afterthought, felt along his nose too. It hurt enough that he found himself tearing up a little, but he didn’t _think_ it was broken. Small favors, he guessed. “I’m _three-dimensional_. How are you not getting dizzy? This place is a nightmare!”

“Oh, I switched out the lenses in my eyes,” Teddie said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He blinked a couple of times with an odd little clicking sound that presumably meant he was showing off his latest party trick.

“You can _do_ that?” Yosuke asked, not sure why he bothered being surprised by literally anything Teddie did at this point – then narrowed his eyes as realization set in. “Wait, you’ve been able to make lenses for this place _this whole time_ and it never occurred to you to make us new glasses?”

“I didn’t realize you were having so much trouble!” Teddie said, far too cheerfully for his own good. “No one else was tripping over their own feet, so I figured it was just Yosuke being Yosuke – HEY!” Teddie tried to back away, arms flailing wildly, but special lenses or not, he was no match for Yosuke’s speed, and before he could take more than a couple of steps, Yosuke had tackled him to the ground and was trying to figure out how to get a bear suit into a headlock.

“Take that back!” Yosuke insisted, over Teddie’s wailing. “And make me some new glasses, dammit!”

“But, Yosuke, I – YOSUKE!” The sudden genuine alarm in Teddie’s voice was enough to make Yosuke fling himself off Teddie. He rolled into a guard position, wishing intensely that he hadn’t dropped his kunai before tackling Teddie – then blinked.

The Void Quest title screen had appeared in the air in front of them. After a few seconds, the text changed.

PLAYER CHARACTER SWAPPED OUT.

COMIC-RELIEF SIDEKICK AND ANNOYING MASCOT APPEARED.

BEGIN SIDE QUEST?

>YES  
NO 

“ _Comic relief?_ ” Yosuke exclaimed, just as Teddie shouted “ _Annoying?"_

“Who could think a bear this cute was annoying?” Teddie continued with a huff, then shouted at the dialogue box, “I’ll have you know that I’m the cutest mascot Junes has ever had! I – ”

“ _Not the time_ , Teddie,” Yosuke hissed in a half-whisper, as his initial outrage died down enough for his common sense to reassert itself. He began looking around wildly for his kunai. “What the hell is going on? Kubo’s gone! Shouldn’t this place be – I don’t know, dormant or whatever?” They’d been back to some of the other dungeons to train or to let Souji hunt for the materials for whatever weird request he’d taken on this time, and those dungeons had all been pretty tame – overrun with Shadows, sure, but without the oppressive sense of being watched that they usually got in dungeons where the creator’s Shadow was still hanging around. The dungeons certainly didn’t _talk_ to them.

“Ye-e-es,” Teddie said slowly. “But… that creep never actually accepted his Shadow, you know.”

“Wait, it’s _still here_?” Yosuke asked, forgetting to keep his voice down. _Shit. Shitshitshitshitshitshit._ He stopped scrabbling around on the ground for his kunai and began scrabbling at his pockets for a Goho-M instead.

“Not… exactly?” Teddie said distractedly as he sniffed the air. “I don’t smell it loud and clear, the way it was before. I think… maybe…” Teddie sniffed harder, then got up and began wandering around slowly, as though following the scent.

Yosuke crouched there and watched as a guy in a bear suit – or possibly a bear suit with a guy in it; Yosuke had no idea how Teddie’s bear suit and human body were connected when he was in the TV world, and he really didn’t _want_ to know – moved over to the wall and smushed his face against it, sniffing deeply, because this was just Yosuke’s life now.

“I think that after we took that guy away, his Shadow didn’t have any reason to stay,” Teddie said finally, pulling his face away from the wall. “Sometimes they don’t. I think that guy’s Shadow ended up just… becoming part of the dungeon. Their smells are all jumbled together.”

“Okay, cool, good to know, but… what does that mean for us, exactly?” Yosuke asked. “Like, is Kubo’s Shadow going to try to kill us by, I don’t know, opening a trapdoor under our feet or something?”

Teddie hummed thoughtfully. “I don’t think so. It feels like… like watching the Midnight Channel, or something. The Shadow can talk to you, but as long as you’re on different sides, it can’t actually do anything to you. This guy’s Shadow is on another side.” Teddie paused, taking one more deep sniff, then nodded and gave Yosuke a thumbs-up. “We’re A-OK to keep going!”

Yosuke closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose to stave off the headache he could feel intensifying behind his eyes. Of course, it probably would have gone better if his nose weren’t bruised to hell, but whatever; at least it was a _different_ pain. God, this was such a bad idea. The responsible thing to do would be to turn around right now and wait until they could come back with the whole team, just in case.

But then… a little reconnaissance _probably_ wasn’t that big a deal; it wasn’t like they’d never sent partial teams into active dungeons before. Between Goho-Ms and Teddie’s Traesto, it was pretty unlikely that they’d get into any trouble they couldn’t get right back out of. Besides, if they didn’t get this done today, Souji was absolutely going to find out about it and insist on coming along, and good luck convincing him to take it easy _then_.

Yosuke stood up slowly and went to collect his kunai, which had apparently ended up behind them somehow. “Okay,” he sighed as he wiped dust off the blades. “You know which way we need to go, right?”

“Leave it to me!” Teddie boasted as the “YES” on the title screen in front of them blinked a few times before the screen disappeared. “I’ve got my bear-ings for sure! Straight ahead, and then bear left! Come on, let’s show _him_ who’s annoying!” Teddie took off down the corridor without even checking to see if Yosuke was behind him.

“Oh, believe me, Ted, you definitely already have,” Yosuke said wearily, and followed.

* * *

On the third floor, they ran into a group of low-level Shadows that it was easier to fight than avoid. While waiting for his turn to strike, Yosuke tossed one of his kunai up and down confidently – then fumbled it, coming perilously close to grabbing the wrong end before he got it back under control. Yosuke glanced at Teddie out of the corner of his eye, but Teddie was busy gleefully flinging ice around and didn’t appear to have noticed. Yosuke breathed a sigh of relief.

Overhead, a dialogue box appeared.

COMIC-RELIEF SIDEKICK TRIES TO BE COOL! DIGNITY DECREASED BY 3! EMBARRASSMENT INCREASED BY 6!

The dialogue box disappeared; then, after a moment of what seemed to be contemplation, it reappeared.

…NUMBER OF FINGERS DID NOT CHANGE!

“ _No one asked you,_ ” Yosuke said through gritted teeth, then sliced the closest Shadow hard enough to get a critical hit.

* * *

On the fifth floor, they ran into a group of Shadows that were weak to ice. “Watch _this_!” Teddie declared grandly. “BEARSONA!”

ANNOYING MASCOT USES HIS CATCHPHRASE! the dialogue box narrated helpfully. MARKETABILITY INCREASED BY .5! POPULARITY DECREASED BY 3!

Teddie’s answering screech was loud enough that Yosuke sighed and double-checked their medical supplies. It looked like they weren’t going to be avoiding any battles by stealth any time soon.

* * *

On the seventh floor, they ended up facing a group of Shadows large enough and tough enough to warrant something a little extra.

“Junes Bomber!” Yosuke and Teddie shouted in unison, and as much as Yosuke rolled his eyes at the attack name, he had to admit that the resulting rain of explosions and knives was pretty satisfying.

“All right!” Teddie cheered as he and Yosuke exchanged a high-five. (Although it was technically more like a middle-five for Yosuke.)

COMIC-RELIEF SIDEKICK AND ANNOYING MASCOT USE THEIR SPECIAL MOVE! the inevitable dialogue box announced. CORPORATE PROPOGANDA INCREASED BY 8! COMMUNITY SPIRIT DECREASED BY 10!

And okay, Yosuke _knew_ it was just throwing stuff at the wall to see what got under their skin, but come _on_. “Seriously?” he yelled at the box. “No, okay, you know what decreases community spirit? _Killing community members_ decreases community spirit!”

The dialogue box disappeared, but there was a heavy sense of smugness in the air. Yosuke made a mental note to start stocking aspirin along with their more specialized medical supplies; his headache was coming back with a vengeance. 

“We’re almost there, right?” Yosuke asked Teddie hopefully, but Teddie was too busy ranting at thin air to respond.

* * *

By the time they hit the ninth floor, they were both worn out and irritable. Yosuke had mostly given up on screaming into the void (or rather, at the Void) in favor of just putting his head down and pushing through the dungeon as quickly as possible. Really, it wasn’t like the dialogue boxes were that much worse than the whispers that followed him through the shopping district – in fact, it was a distinct improvement in some ways. In the shopping district, Yosuke had to just grin and bear it; the TV world gave him plenty of opportunities to blow off a little steam.

Yosuke was just contemplating whether it would be more satisfying to finish off the current crop of Shadows by blowing them away with a totally overkill Garudyne or by getting up close and personal with his kunai when Teddie suddenly shouted, “Ooh, me, me! It’s my turn!”

“Hey, wait a min – ” Yosuke started to protest, but Teddie bounded past him for the follow-up. Yosuke just shook his head as Teddie ripped through the remaining Shadows.

“Teddie, you can’t just – ” Yosuke began, but the dialogue box beat him to it.

ANNOYING MASCOT PERFORMS A FOLLOW-UP ATTACK! DAMAGE INCREASES BY 80! SELFISHNESS INCREASES BY 7!

Yosuke just shook his head. “Come on, Ted, let’s go.”

Teddie didn’t argue – in fact, he didn’t say anything at all as they took off down the corridor, which was nice for the first couple of minutes but then just got kind of weird and creepy. After a while, Yosuke couldn’t take it anymore and reached out to flick Teddie’s ear.

“Ow! Hey, what’d you do that for, you big meanie?” Teddie demanded, rubbing his ear and glaring up at Yosuke.

Yosuke just grinned at him. That was more like it. “Just making sure you were still in there,” he said, all innocence. “I don’t want have to explain to Dad that you can’t make your shift tomorrow because you got your fluff scrambled by a Shadow.”

“My fluff is in perfect condition, thank you beary much!” Teddie said frostily, still glaring at Yosuke. After a moment, though, his expression turned to something sadder and more genuine, and Yosuke felt a prickle of actual worry run down his gut.

“Seriously, what’s up?” Yosuke asked, and Teddie heaved a sigh, wringing his paws.

“I just… Maybe that sign is right. Maybe I _am_ selfish,” he admitted. Yosuke bit back an instinctive _Yeah, no shit_ and waited. Eventually, Teddie continued, “Is it bad that I’m… kind of happy to know that some of Sensei’s power comes from his bond with me? I mean, I hate that being that Wild Card thing makes Sensei feel bad!” he added quickly, peeking up at Yosuke with an expression more like a dog being scolded than like a bear. “I don’t want him to feel like he has to do things that make him uncomfortable! But… if I’ve been giving Sensei power all along, then… I can’t help feeling like maybe I’m not so useless after all.”

_Ah_. “Yeah, I get it,” Yosuke said after a pause, and he really did; the knowledge that some of Souji’s ridiculously OP skills came from their bond had certainly soothed some of the last remnants of jealousy that lurked in the shadowy parts of Yosuke’s id. Not like he was proud of it or anything, but… “I don’t think Souji would mind you feeling that way,” Yosuke continued. “I mean, none of us can do anything about the way Souji’s powers work, so I don’t think it’s selfish to look on the bright side. I’m pretty sure Souji would just say that he’s glad _something_ good came of it.”

“Do you really think so, Yosuke?” Teddie asked, staring up at him with such a wide-eyed expression that Yosuke couldn’t resist ruffling the fur on top of his head. (Messing said fur up spectacularly in the process was simply an unfortunate side effect. Couldn’t be helped. Tragic, really.)

Over Teddie’s cries of rank betrayal and infamy, Yosuke advised, “Ask him yourself if you want to be sure, but… I wouldn’t worry about it too much. It’s okay to think about yourself sometimes, you know.”

Teddie paused in the act of smoothing out his fur, apparently thinking deeply. “So…” he began slyly, “does that mean I can – ”

“If you charge your Topsicles to my account again, I will _end your existence_ ,” Yosuke said, with great feeling.

“So stingy!” Teddie whined, but his heart didn’t seem to be in it. He evidently remembered that his paws were still on his head, and he began patting absently at his fur again. “Yosuke…” he said after a moment, then stopped.

“Yeah?” Yosuke asked, a little distracted by the way Teddie was managing to push his fur into an even bigger mess than it was before.

“Is it… really okay not to protect Sensei when we’re fighting?” Teddie asked, his voice hushed as though he were half-afraid to say the words aloud. “If something happened… Could we really do this without Sensei?”

Yosuke flinched, the words landing a critical hit right on his weakest point. He didn’t realize that his hands were moving until he felt the familiar, comforting weight of his headphones sliding off his neck and over his ears. He had to force himself to stop at that, shoving his hands into his uniform pockets and bunching up fistfuls of fabric to hold his hands in place so he couldn’t grab his music and turn it up full blast, loud enough that he couldn’t hear himself think, much less field questions from the peanut gallery. That would be a shitty thing to do, and Yosuke knew it – it had been a genuine question, and a fair one. Yosuke just didn’t know how to answer it.

_Could_ they do this without Souji? Yosuke didn’t see how he could – he couldn’t imagine _life_ without Souji these days, never mind that he’d only known Souji for half a year. That week and a half when Souji had been missing in the TV world had been almost unbearable, Yosuke dragging himself through the days fueled by nothing but hope and/or terror; after a while, Yosuke hadn’t really been able to distinguish between the two. The thought of doing it _again_ – maybe a lifetime of it – of what would come once the hope and terror both ran out… Look, Yosuke didn’t – he couldn’t – 

But then… Even if Yosuke tried to set his feelings aside and look at the situation from a purely practical point of view, he still wasn’t sure they could see this through without Souji to lead them. Because – look, Yosuke wasn’t stupid, and he’d seen at least one (1) fantasy/sci-fi movie in his life. He knew damn well that whatever it was they’d gotten themselves into, Souji was meant to be the hero of it; he couldn’t be raising more “Chosen One” flags if King Moron had assigned him to sit in the second seat from the back, by the window. Yosuke wasn’t exactly sure where all this TV world stuff was headed – aside from hopefully toward catching Saki-senpai’s killer – but he _was_ pretty sure that if there was a bigger picture involved, Souji was in it, front and center. And maybe Souji was the one being a little selfish by being willfully blind to that and wanting to be treated like any other team member when he obviously had powers they didn’t, and when he’d already agreed to be their leader, with all that entailed.

Of course, if the last six months had taught Yosuke anything, it was that he couldn’t – and shouldn’t – set his feelings aside, and what Yosuke felt above anything else was this: if it was a question of whether Yosuke wanted to put his faith in whatever nebulous higher power pointed at Souji and said “Yeah, that one” or in _Souji’s_ feelings…

Well. Yosuke’d decided who and what he believed in a long time ago, and he’d never regretted it. Souji had turned Yosuke’s whole world around with his calm, steady presence and quiet acceptance; if Souji needed something for a change, then Yosuke was prepared to take on Heaven and Hell both to make sure he got it, no matter how much Yosuke wished Souji had chosen something else. Besides, Yosuke had meant it when he’d said that he wanted to be equals with Souji. Yosuke had always been content to follow his friends’ lead back in the city, molding his personality to fit in comfortably right in the center of the group, where he couldn’t get left behind, but with Souji, it was different. Following along behind him wasn’t enough; Yosuke needed Souji close enough to high-five when a fight went well, to throw a companionable arm around his shoulders, to… Anyway. The knowledge that Souji genuinely wanted to be equals too – hadn’t just been humoring Yosuke – sparked a warmth inside Yosuke that even his fear for Souji couldn’t chill. And maybe that was _Yosuke_ being selfish, but he wanted –

“Yo – Yosuke!” Teddie yelped. Yosuke snapped to attention and immediately noted several things:

1\. The room they had just entered was a dead end.

2\. There was a Shadow in it, because of course there was, and it got the drop on them, because of course it did.

3\. That Kubo guy must have been into more than just swords-and-sorcery-style RPGs, because that Shadow looked suspiciously like a Gundam.

4\. IT’S A GUNDAM

5\. HOLY CRAP

Yosuke dropped into a guard position just in time to shield himself from the brunt of the Gundam’s blow. Teddie was less lucky – or at least, slower – and went flying. At least it didn’t look like he’d taken much damage from it, based on the way he bounded back to his feet, waving his arms excitedly. “Yosuke!” he called, way too cheerfully. “I figured out where the ore is!”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Yosuke groaned, not that he believed for a second that his luck was good enough for that. Of _course_ they were going to have to duke it out with a Gundam knockoff over a stupid rock. Of _course_ they were. _Damn it! Why does this kind of stuff always happen to me?_

COMIC-RELIEF SIDEKICK AND ANNOYING MASCOT ENCOUNTER STEEL MACHINE! a dialogue box added helpfully. LUCK DECREASED BY – 

There was a pause, then the words disappeared briefly before continuing. ERROR! LUCK IS ALREADY AT ZERO!

“I don’t need _you_ to tell me that,” Yosuke grumbled, then summoned Susano-o and threw himself forward.

During the ensuing battle, Yosuke added several more notes to his HOLY CRAP IT’S A GUNDAM list:

6\. The Steel Machine resisted wind moves.

7\. The Steel Machine resisted ice moves.

8\. The Steel Machine resisted physical moves, which – yeah, okay, it’s not like Yosuke really expected to be able to charge in and just punch out a mecha, but _man_ , that would have been awesome. 

9\. That dialogue box really wasn’t kidding about their luck, because he and Teddie could not pull off a successful Wind Break or Ice Break for the life of them.

_Possibly literally,_ Yosuke thought as he cast a Diarama on himself in the wake of one of the Steel Machine’s blows. This _sucked_. Yosuke hated to call it quits when they were literally one Shadow away from their goal, but… “Teddie, I think we’d better get ready to run,” Yosuke said in an undertone as he eyed the Shadow warily.

Teddie hesitated, and when Yosuke glanced over at him, he looked torn – in more ways than one, actually. That last attack had really done a number on the bear suit; in fact, one of Teddie’s feet had a hole in the toe big enough that something seemed to be sticking out. Ugh, Teddie’d better not be leaving junk food wrappers in his suit again.

“It’s pretty strong,” Teddie admitted. “But… I don’t wanna lose to this thing! I wanna help out Sensei!”

“You think I like this either?” Yosuke snapped. “I don’t wanna lose here any more than you do! But it’s not like this is a rescue or anything. Do you know what it would do to Souji if he found out that one of us got seriously hurt running one of his errands? That’s not helping him out, dammit! So get rid of whatever’s sticking out of your foot and let’s get out of here!”

“My… foot?” Teddie blinked, then looked down. “Oh!” He reached down. Something made a seriously bizarre twang, and Yosuke decided to just… turn his back on Teddie and whatever weirdness he was quite literally entangled in, turning around just in time to see another dialogue box pop up.

COMIC-RELIEF SIDEKICK AND ANNOYING MASCOT TRY TO ESCAPE! COWARDICE INCREASED BY 8! RATIONALIZATION SKILLS INCREASED BY 6! SELFISHNESS INCREASED BY 10!

“You’re wrong!” Teddie called breathlessly from behind Yosuke, the weird noises pausing for a moment. “Yosuke really is thinking about Sensei – and even if he wasn’t, it’s not selfish to think about yourself sometimes! I know that’s true because Yosuke told me so, and he’s the nicest person I know, other than Sensei – he’s one-third kindness by volume! I learned just about everything I know about being human from them!”

_By… volume?_ It was probably the weirdest compliment Yosuke’d ever received, but it still filled him with the same warm, light feeling that the Diarama had. Somehow, during all the time he’d spent following behind others and doing his best to catch up to Souji, it had never occurred to him that someone might be trying to follow _his_ lead.

“Yosuke, here!” Teddie added much more quietly, pushing something rubbery against Yosuke’s hand. Yosuke quickly shifted around his kunai and took… a balloon?

“I forgot that I left the extra balloons we had left over from the latest Junes promotion in my suit!” Teddie said in response to Yosuke’s questioning look. “I blew one up – I think it will work as an attack item here.”

_Huh._ Well, only one way to find out, Yosuke supposed. He stepped forward, glaring at the dialogue box. “It’s like Ted said,” Yosuke said. He tried to keep his voice steady, but he could feel himself getting louder as he lost his grip on his temper. He was tired and sore and had spent the entire day getting his ego stomped on by the remnants of some cheap copycat murderer as part of a stupid quest for some stupid item that shouldn’t have been Souji’s problem in the first place, and Yosuke was just _done_. “You’re just trying to bait us into doing something stupid to try and prove you wrong. Well, you know what? You’re right! My motives _are_ selfish! It’s because _I_ want to be the one who makes it okay for Souji to be a little selfish sometimes, and to think about himself for a change. So you know what? You wanna call me selfish, I’m fine with that. It’s better than being some delusional asshole who doesn’t know when to quit. Susano-o!”

Yosuke tossed the balloon in the air as high as he could, and Susano-o unleashed a gust of wind that slammed it right into the Steel Machine, at which point Yosuke was able to add a few more notes to his list:

10\. Balloons turned into bombs in the TV world, apparently.

11\. The Steel Machine did _not_ resist bombs.

12\. Blowing a Gundam up with a bomb was slightly less awesome than punching it in the face would have been, but still pretty awesome, not gonna lie.

With the explosion still ringing in his ears, Yosuke stepped forward and picked up the rock that was sitting in the space the Steel Machine had just abruptly vacated. “Have fun heckling Shadows, or whatever,” Yosuke said. “We’re done here.”

He reached in his pocket for a Goho-M – only for his fingers to hit the seam of his pocket and keep right on going. Apparently Yosuke’d been clutching the lining hard enough to rip a hole in it earlier, and his items had fallen out… somewhere.

Yosuke closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then another. Fine. This was fine. It wasn’t like Yosuke didn’t have a Plan B anyway. He turned to Teddie. “Teddie, use Traesto!” Yosuke ordered in his best leader voice.

“I can’t!” Teddie said brightly. “I used up all my energy in the fight!”

Yosuke stared at Teddie. Teddie blinked innocently up at him, clearly not seeing the problem here.

Having to trudge all the way back the way they came was a significantly less dramatic exit than Yosuke had been going for, and the mocking silence that hung in the air and echoed around them would normally have left Yosuke’s ears burning as he silently writhed in embarrassment. But somehow, with Teddie trotting along beside him and chattering about how cool they’d been and how happy Sensei was going to be, and with the thought of Souji warm and safe at home, sitting at the kotatsu and playing games with Nanako instead of running himself ragged, Yosuke couldn’t bring himself to care.

**Author's Note:**

> Yosuke’s brain caught up with what his mouth had said during that last fight, in front of God and Teddie and the Void Quest, when they were about three-quarters of the way to the backlot. He handled it with all the grace one might expect, which is to say that Teddie ended up wasting their last sedative trying to cure whatever delayed-reaction status ailment Yosuke was under.
> 
> Actual Notes:  
> Spaghetti4U did a gorgeous illustration [here](https://twitter.com/_Spaghetti4U/status/1343989697362722816)!


End file.
